


The Road Back

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Jagged Little Pill - Morissette & Ballard/Morissette/Cody
Genre: Angst, Hurt Minimal Comfort, Missing Scene, Other, relationship angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27965000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Jo and Frankie, on the ride back from New York.
Relationships: Frankie Healy/Jo
Kudos: 17





	The Road Back

Jo tapped their fingers against the steering wheel. They’d been in the car for ninety minutes. If they’d started out in Rockville, they’d be on the other side of the world by now. As things were, they’d hardly made it out of the East Village. 

City driving wasn’t Jo’s thing. Neither was driving at night. Somebody honked a horn, and Jo gritted their teeth, doing all they could to keep from squirming out of their own goddamn skin. The flashing lights of New York thrummed out their uneven rhythms, always right in the corner of Jo’s eye, where the migraines lived. 

Frankie leaned against the passenger side door, body turned away from Jo. The screen of her cell phone illuminated her face and the tears standing on her cheeks. 

(The cruelest part of Jo was bitter that their whole tirade had been upstaged. They’d spent hours thinking up every awful thing they could possibly say, let all that fury loose and then? Nothing.)

Frankie said nothing.

Jo said nothing. 

Jo said nothing. 

Frankie said: “Can you drive any faster?” 

Jo said: “Sure. Yeah. Let me just hit the Bionic Mega Wings button and _fly_ over all these other cars.” 

Frankie said nothing. She typed something on her phone. It pinged in response. 

Frankie cleared her throat. “I can’t believe she’s in the hospital. I can’t believe she _overdosed_. You know my mom. She’s the farthest thing from a drug addict.” 

Jo shrugged. 

“Please tell me that none of this is real.” 

“Okay. Not real. We’re on the fakesmobile to fakesville.” 

(Jo wasn’t exactly joking. This whole situation felt fake as hell. _They_ felt fake as hell. Their face and hands, especially, were all prickly and numb.)

“This is all my fault,” Frankie continued. “We fought about my adoption, my birth parents, all of it. Y’know, I guess I’m luckier than you, because whenever my parents suck, I get to tell myself that they aren’t my _real_ parents, and that my _real_ parents would be a million percent better. More progressive. More radical. More... I don’t know. More loving?”

(On “loving” Frankie’s voice cracked. That wasn’t lost on Jo.)

“That woman in the hospital,” Frankie said. She gasped. “That’s my _mom_. She feels so much like my real honest to god mom right now, and she could die.” 

Frankie was crying for real now. There was a pressure in Jo’s neck and chest, which they tried to swallow down, or else they’d die too. Summoning all of their gentleness, they put a hand on Frankie’s back.   
“Babe. I’m sorry.”

(They didn’t forgive her, but they were sorry.)

“You’ll get through this.”

(They still didn’t forgive her, but they believed in Frankie’s ability to get through anything.)

By the time Frankie spoke again, the traffic was finally starting to inch forward a little bit. 

“This is all so ironic,” she said. 

Jo didn’t answer. Their hands were back on the steering wheel. 

“I don’t know what I’m going on about. Apparently I don’t even know what the word _ironic_ means.” 

(Jo was familiar enough with Frankie’s lexicon to know that to her “ironic” was a much beloved and profoundly overused a synonym for “bad” and “unfair”. They weren’t about to correct her now.)

“I don’t think it really matters,” they said. “You feel the way you feel. So let’s call it ironic. Hella fucking ironic, am I right?” 

Through her tears, Frankie smiled just a little bit. 

“Look,” said Jo. “I’m sorry for my part in this, if I had a part. I mean, I guess I had a part. When I told your parents about you and Phoenix, I was lashing out. I only cared about hurting you. I didn’t stop to consider that I might be hurting someone else in the process.” 

Jo expected Frankie to reject that apology, or to make more excuses for her behavior. She did not expect her to turn to face them, looking so soft and vulnerable that Jo was afraid they’d set themselves on fire to protect her if it ever came down to it. 

(And who would ever protect Jo? No one. The idea reverberated through them, hollow and loud.)

“Do you still want to hurt me?” Frankie asked, in a tone which seemed to say _please don’t_.

“No,” Jo answered. For the rest of the ride to the hospital, Jo and Frankie didn’t speak. For the rest of the ride to the hospital, Jo plotted how they were going to put an end to this relationship, before it could obliterate them.


End file.
